


Forty Days

by Nagaina



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: AU, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-20
Updated: 2009-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 10:58:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nagaina/pseuds/Nagaina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when the Earl of the Millennium decides to dispense with the piecemeal approach to annihilating humanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forty Days

**Author's Note:**

> This fic could easily be subtitled 'what happens when Nagaina spends too much time thinking about how to survive a zombie apocalypse.' Occurred despite my best efforts to induce a fluffy college romance zombie apocalypse crossover AU with _World War Z_ and/or _Shaun of the Dead_ type undead invasion. I will understand if you want to beat me with a baseball bat for this.

**Day Three:**

It's been three days...quite probably three of the worst days ever, in the history of the world, and I speak with a reliable degree of specialist knowledge and certainty in that regard. I'm sorry. I'm babbling. I also haven't slept more than a few minutes in those three days so I'm afraid I --

Let me start over again.

It's been three days. Yuu and I are at Hunedoara Castle in Hungary, with approximately one hundred and fifty refugees, most of them women and children. Our position is not entirely encircled due to the nature of the castle's fortifications, though we estimate the numbers of -- of -- adversaries outside the gates at somewhere over a thousand and increasing in size daily. We have a clean well for water and enough food to last...a least a week or two, we think. We have a small cache of conventional firearms and ammunition for them, and a somewhat greater number of archaic weapons, but not enough people who know how to use either. We have been separated from General Theodore and Noise Marie and it was been a day and a half since we last saw signs of Maker of Eden and Noel Organo. For Yuu's sake, I'm pretending that I think they retreated to safety themselves but, given the numbers out there...I don't know. I...think if they had been able to answer our transmissions, they would have by now.

And. The things themselves. HQ may consider the reports of a 'new kind of Akuma' fundamentally confirmed. They're -- not like any Akuma I've ever seen or fought before. Even the Level Four. They're fast -- faster than Yuu -- and vicious, once they latch on, they keep biting until they get to flesh or you kill them. One of them actually got a hold of Yuu's hair and took a chunk out of him, though the injury has since healed. They do not appear to suffer physical pain, nor do they appear to experience anything like existential fear -- you can't drive them off by threatening to attack them, you have to actually do it and, even then, they won't actually retreat, they'll keep coming until they get hold of you or you kill them, whichever comes first. They appear perfectly willing to hunt in packs and attack everything that moves. And the NOISES they make, God --

I'm babbling again.

When they attack, they screech and growl, like animals, without any attempt at intelligent communication that I can see. Otherwise? They just...moan. Like they're hungry. All the time. It's...a little disconcerting. If you listen, you can probably hear them in the background of his recording.

Speaking of which, I am setting his recording to broadcast at the standard emergency frequency. If you are receiving this transmission, please reply to Sir Kanda Yuu's receiver unit. Be advised that our situation is serious and I am NOT exaggerating the numbers involved here.

**Day Six:**

Hunedoara Castle, broadcasting on the primary emergency band. Again, if you're receiving this transmission, please reply to Sir Kanda Yuu's receiver unit.

I have spent the last several days taking testimony from the refugees, and some of the stories they've told are...interesting, to say the least. No one knows precisely how this...incident...started, but some facts have generally become clear. To wit: the main vector for transmitting the 'infection' that turns ordinary humans into these things is apparently their bite. The contagion is, evidently, carried in their bodily fluids. The woman who took charge of the refugees was a nurse at a local sanatorium who personally witnessed individuals being brought in from farm-steads and mountain villages that had been bitten by 'wild men' and 'gypsies' that transformed after an illness duration of anything from a few hours to a few days. The infectees were kept quarantined from the rest of the population, but gradually the numbers of freshly arrived cases overwhelmed their ability to take them all in and keep them contained. She and he head of the sanatorium were in town, trying to warn the local authorities, when the outbreak here began. Just about everyone here has a first-or-second-hand account similar to hers: bitten friend/family member, short but severe illness, death...and rising from the dead. Everyone here has lost someone. One woman had her newborn son snatched out of her arms. Half the children don't know where their parents are, of if they're even still alive.

Yuu appears, fortunately, to be immune to the contagious element of these creatures' bite, just as he's immune to Akuma toxin and the flu and stomach bugs. He is, however, not immune to being swarmed and having the flesh stripped off his bones faster than he can heal, which means I won the argument about whether or not I should just drop him in the middle of the city and wait in the castle with the others until he's finished killing everything that moves. The things do, fortunately, burn like anything does when it's hit with Fire Seal -- though I have to be careful not to set fire to anything we might need. Like our own defences, or the outlying buildings closest to our position. We don't have enough supplies to last here indefinitely -- at some point, we're going to have to go into the city to scavenge for more.

If anyone is hearing this, please reply. Our situation is serious, but tenable at this point. I can't say how long that will last.

**Day Eight:**

Hunedoara Castle, broadcasting on the primary emergency band. If you're receiving, please reply to Sir Kanda Yuu's receiver unit.

The creatures possess at least a rudimentary level of intellect -- not as intelligent as a high-order Akuma, but more than sufficient for purposes, which was figuring out how to climb up the gorge side of the castle and get over the wall. Fortunately, Yuu managed to kill it before it bit anyone, though there's nothing to be recommended in stumbling into one of these things in the small hours of the morning on the way to the privies. As a preventive measure, I burned off the vegetation around the base of the castle on the gorge side and smoothed out the ground to something resembling a glassy consistency, though there's nothing I can do about the surface of the castle or the walls without risking their fundamental integrity. The handholds aren't that easy to grab just by flinging yourself across the gorge at the walls, as the creatures on the upper opposite side have discovered. We now have quite a population of them in the gorge itself. Yuu wants to go down and make a detailed study of killing them very badly. Given the circumstances, I think that might be a good idea.

We also decided to undertake some enhanced security precautions. We moved sleeping quarters into the most easily secured tower -- things are cramped, admittedly, but at least they're also warm. It's September, after all, and winter's not that far off this high in the mountains. We also started teaching everyone some basic English words and phrases, like 'look out!' and 'monster!' so we won't have to waste time trying to translate in an emergency situation. Naturally, the children are picking that up faster than the adults.

Situation is...stable. For now. But I can assure you, we wouldn't turn the cavalry away.

**Day Eleven:**

HQ...was that you? If so, please call Yuu's receiver unit -- the damned thing is working, I promise you.

**Day Fifteen:**

Hunedoara Castle. Broadcasting on the primary emergency frequency. If you're receiving this, please reply to Sir Kanda Yuu's receiver unit.

Yuu's investigations into the art and science of killing these things have borne some fruit. The head and spinal cord are the weak points. Behead the things, or otherwise bisect, cleave, or damage the skull or brain, and it kills them for good. Cut them in half and you've got two creatures, each trying to get at you, even though the legs can't do much but spill black goo all over the place. They don't have blood as we understand it, which as far as I'm concerned bolsters the idea that they started as a new form of Akuma -- of which we have seen none, by the way, at least not the conventional varieties. Our reports suggested that there was a low-level infestation in the area before this but now...nothing.

I wonder if these things can...eat Akuma? After all, the Akuma eat each other...but these creatures, from what we can tell, don't attack one another. Living things? Yes. Not just human beings but animals, too. Even insects. I'm not sure I'm curious enough to find out.

Fire Seal also does by them quite thoroughly. Their bones incandesce in a way that human bones usually don't when they're burning and the stink is absolutely terrific. Heaven Seal, alternatively, doesn't even make them really twitch. Still, fire is good enough for me if I have to clear large numbers of them at once. Which is what we're planning to do over the next few days -- we need to resupply, and that's going to mean clearing a path into town.

Wish us luck by making contact, yeah?

**Day Twenty-One:**

Hunedoara Castle. Broadcasting on emergency -- if you're receiving this, please, please call Yuu's receiver.

Our situation is...not good. The things are changing, and not in a good way.

They're getting smarter. They laid a trap for us in the city -- we got overconfident, and it bit us. Literally.

We'd been making runs every couple of days. Clearing out an area, picking up anything we could use -- food, blankets, medicine when we could get it, clothes -- and then zipping back to the castle before the things could mob us. Mostly we confined ourselves to the areas closest to the castle -- shortened the supply line, as it were. It was working out. We even found a couple survivors huddled in their attics. We started to branch out.

A mistake. A big mistake. They lured us with a kid they were keeping alive as bait. I'll say that again: they used strategy to con us into a trap. The kid never had a chance. I almost didn't have a chance -- a pack of them got a hold of me and if my uniform had been a little looser on me, a little less tough, I'd be -- God, I can still FEEL them trying to tear the flesh off my bones. Yuu was swarmed by so many I couldn't even get close enough to offer him a hand -- a Fire Seal would have caught him, too. I managed to get airborne, barely, and circled up -- Yuu almost hit me with Phoenix Circles Above the Dawn as he started cutting his way out. He built himself a pile of corpses to climb to the level of a porch roof on and picked him up from there. His uniform was ripped to shreds and he was covered in bites and blood, most of it his own, and black goo but he still healed. I think he's becoming less opposed to the idea of wearing some of that chain-mail from the armoury museum here, even if it slows him down some.

We made it back. The things didn't follow us, but we can see them moving around now, in the city. Doing something with a purpose. I'm...

Please contact us. Situation is extremely hostile.

**Day Twenty-Nine:**

Something's wrong with Yuu. For God's sake, please, please contact me.

**Day Thirty-Two:**

Yuu.

Yuu. Yuu is. Changed. He.

Last night. It happened last night, while he was on watch. I woke up when I heard the chains on the bridge and gate mechanisms rattling. He let them in. He let those things in. We only barely got the tower doors closed and barricaded -- he had opened them first.

If you're receiving this transmission, please call back on this frequency. Please.

**Day Thirty-Eight:**

The creatures broke through the lower doors yesterday. They chipped away enough at the supporting stone that the door hinges just...gave out. We're in our secondary fall-back position but...

We have almost no water. We have almost no food. I...don't think the barricade will hold for more than a day or two at most. I think...

No, I don't think. I know.

We're all going to die, one way or another. What we have to decide now is...how.

**Day Forty:**

This recording, and the recordings before it, are the final testimony of myself, and the refugees who survived until this point. I am releasing my communications unit in the hope that it will find a living Exorcist to yield this information to, if anyone in the world remains alive to receive it. We...have prepared ourselves for this. The children are all sleeping -- they won't be awake for what I'm about to do. We are all going to die -- but our plan is to take this infestation with us. I can, and have, expanded Fire Seal to fill this entire valley -- I will do so as soon as this recording his complete. I...

If there is no one to receive this...I'll see you all soon.

Please. Let there be someone to receive this.

Good-bye.


End file.
